Property Rights Foundation of America&REG;
Founded 1994

Book Reviews

Ending Big Sis (The Special Interest State) and Renewing
the American Republic, by James DeLong (Published 2012,
242 pages, $11.95 paperback)

Jim DeLong, who wrote Property Matters: How Property Rights
Are Under Assault and Why YouShould Care (1997), has just
published Ending Big Sis: ( The Special
Interest State) and Renewing the American Republic, which
vividly describes the way rent-seeking factions have captured
the many regulatory agencies created to manage the multifarious
government responsibilities undertaken since the 1930s, leading
to systemic corruption and wasteful distortions and dysfunctions.

Many treatises have been written about the plague of overgrown
government, but few authors who write broadly about the wrong
directions of American government emphasize private property rights
adquately. The lifetime of commentary by Jim DeLong, who will
deliver the keynote address at the Property Rights Foundation
of Americas Sixteenth Annual National Conference on October
20, 2012, emphasizes property rights as absolutely essential in
the context of reforming government.

The publication of Big Sis treats the reader to Jim
DeLongs historical and political brilliance applied to todays
client state. Point by point, the author erases any question that
we are subject to a system of government diametrically opposed
to the Founders design of checks and balances. This fine
book consistently leaps beyond the typical calls for reform, which
are usually superficial, by explaining the assumptions and structures
that facilitate todays Behemoth government.

One of DeLongs many important accomplishments is his
discrediting of the Supreme Courts rational basis
test for the legitimacy of legislation, where the court abdicates
its role to the judgment of legislators. A telling recent case
was when the Supreme Court relegated private property rights to
this non-functioning test in the eminent domain decision known
as Susette Kelo vs. the City of New London, where a thriving
neighborhood was about to be destroyed so that the city could
develop the area for private business. Since the city deemed this
a public purpose because it was said to facilitate
additional tax revenue, the high court deferred. The neighborhood
was leveled. Not long after that, however, Pfizer, the private
corporation that was the key to the redevelopment, moved out of
New London. The site is now vacant, a city dump.

But these government excesses do not have to be intractable,
and DeLong digs into the critical changes that could bring the
citizenry to effectively assert a longer term and broader view.
DeLongs well-honed perspective will benefit readers seeking
understanding and direction, whether they have a long involvement
in a wide range of issues or are new-comers to civic involvement.